Episode 72: Transcript

You are listening to episode 72 of the Path to Motherhood podcast.

Welcome to the Path to Motherhood podcast.

I'm your host and fertility life coach, Sarah Brandell.

Join us each week as we walk through navigating your trying to conceive journey.

My mission is to share the skills of managing your mind, processing emotions and living a full life to create a more authentic path to motherhood.

Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Path to Motherhood podcast.

I'm your host, Sarah Brandell.

Super excited to talk to you today all about how we go about creating more compassion in our day to day life, reconnecting to ourselves, becoming more present with ourselves on this journey.

I am super excited to cover this topic because I think it's one that we could all work on and really need permission to focus and prioritize on our journey.

And yeah, that's what we're going to talk about today.

I am sitting here with my dog, Murphy, next to me.

He's in a pretty grumpy mood.

He got into something and like really tangled up an area of his fur.

And I don't know, I just haven't been able to like get him into the groomer groom him in the last month or two as much as I would like just I think being later into this pregnancy and so my husband I don't know decided that he thought he could handle it and he had to shave him pretty good in an area and he is grumpy about it.

So we may hear him whining in the background because he's in a bad mood.

I'm hoping that this hair will grow back quickly so that he becomes much more pleasant because the last day and a half he's been grumpy and irritated and even I can see like it's made him like anxious to like have this patch of fur exposed.

So if we hear him, I'm sorry, I try to avoid background noise but that might be one that I can't completely avoid.

So anyways, like I said, today we're gonna focus on really the how-to of creating more compassion in your day-to-day, of creating more self-love in your day-to-day, and reconnecting, becoming more present with yourself.

And I see that happening through a handful of different things and we're gonna talk about that.

But the first thing that I think we really have to touch on is like giving yourself permission to do that.

Because I think in this journey, we get so focused on next steps and medical tests and procedures and cost of things and what we need to do in figuring out the answer of why we're not getting pregnant or why we're having losses and really just like focused on that.

And I find that when we're so focused on that, it causes us to kind of forget that there is benefit in stepping back and just supporting ourselves on this process.

And so I just wanna remind you like, there's a reason I do the work that I do.

There's a reason, right.

My background is as a medical provider.

I really did think my long-term goal was to go into a fertility medical practice where I helped you sort through all of that, where I helped you do the testing and do the protocols and figure out your fertility.

But what I realized is there's umpteen million thousand different offerings of that, people on the internet, medical providers everywhere, supporting you through that journey, that exists.

But nobody seems to be on the side of like, how do I just take care of myself through this process.

It's all focused on how do you fix yourself.

And I have mixed opinions on that, but nobody seems to want to say like, "Hey, we don't have control over it all.

"We aren't guaranteed to find that silver bullet answer that's gonna fix all our problems.

And this is gonna be a long haul.

So why not take care of myself, support myself, protect my emotional health along the way.

And I just wanna give you permission to prioritize that.

Because I think it can be so easy to be focused on all of the others, that we're willing to invest in all of the others.

But to think about investing time or money or energy into just taking care of yourself emotionally, that can feel like, I find that women find that that feels frivolous.

And I'm the first to tell you that it is the farthest thing from frivolous.

I really see it as one of the most important things that you can do.

Women get so emotionally burnout on this journey that they quit before they ever would have liked to.

They feel pulled out of this, unable to continue before they ever would have liked to.

And so I believe taking care of ourselves emotionally, protecting ourselves emotionally, reconnecting to ourselves and our present self can be the most important thing to not only one, make this journey through the fertility process less miserable, but two, keep you going.

And I do believe deep down, increase your likelihood of success.

It's not something I talk about often because I can't guarantee that, but like, how much do we know that the nervous system and protecting ourselves and supporting our nervous system supports our fertility.

So being able to manage our anxieties better, being able to reconnect and love on our body better.

These are things that I just have a really hard time believing would not be beneficial to your fertility journey.

So if you've been kind of questioning, Is it worth it to invest in myself.

Is it worth it to support my fertility emotional health.

Is it worth it to invest in a therapist.

Is it worth it to work with a coach.

I am the first person to tell you absolutely it is worth it.

Find someone who really can support you, who really understands what you're going through, who's been through it, who gets it when you say you're doing the ERA or you're doing napro technology so that they understand what you're talking about so you can get down to work of supporting yourself and spend less time just educating the person supporting you and get the support.

I mean that.

I really, really do.

I think that is so important for all of us to have that permission.

When it comes to finding ourselves and reconnecting to self-love, I talked about last week, the The number one word that connects for me is compassion.

For some people, this is a hard word to connect to.

If that's the case, that's okay.

Another word that I feel can be a little bit more relatable for some women is just understanding.

When you reflect on your past, how can you be more understanding of yourself.

Having acknowledged everything that you've gone through.

So how can you be more understanding of how you've shown up, how you've felt about your body, how your body has changed, maybe how it's gained weight, changed the activities it's done, any of that stuff.

How can you be more understanding.

How can you be more compassionate to yourself knowing what you've been through.

How can you be more understanding and compassionate of yourself now and how your anxiety shows up and your fear shows up every time you go to the bathroom during the two week wait.

How can you be more understanding of how you're feeling leading up to your next transfer when the doubt wants to come up every single day.

How can you be more understanding and compassion of yourself when you get the bad news that this cycle didn't work, that your period starts, that you start to have bleeding in the first trimester.

How can you show up from a compassionate and understanding place.

These are the questions I want you to be asking yourself.

How can you be more understanding and compassionate of yourself when fears about your future come up.

And the reason I'm being kind of vague here is because the answers to these questions is going to be different for all of us.

For me to come back to those questions was so helpful to just remind myself like, yeah, this is hard.

Of course I'm going to have grief.

Of course I'm going to have doubt.

Of course I'm going to have fears and to expect myself to go through a two week wait without fears is just dumb, right.

Like that's not gonna happen and so to expect there to be this just happy go lucky 100% hopeful to equate is a waste of my energy I need to understand that and accept that there's gonna be moments of extreme fear doubt worry etc and just be okay with that the other thing this has allowed me to do is win the grief when the loss When the disappointment was coming up, I was able to advocate for, it is beneficial for me to let this pain be here.

To sit with this pain.

And we're gonna spend all next week focusing 100% on how to do that.

How to be with our pain, how to process our pain.

Another way that I see that we can reconnect more to this self-love and this compassion is through honestly becoming more present, right.

We talked last week about how easy it is to feel very disconnected from our body.

Almost as if, you know, the fear of going through with all these emotions like we talked about makes us separate from our actual physical body, right.

Like our physical body's there, we're frustrated with it.

It's broken, it's not functioning properly.

and my brain body is over here on the other side.

And so I always think about those two becoming disconnected and we have to find ways to reconnect them, to remind ourselves that they are one thing.

And that's gonna look different for everybody.

I know for me, yoga was a big part of that.

To lie down and be in Zen yoga where we would hold these poses for long periods of time and I just would live with the conversation in my head and just ask myself, how are you doing.

How are you feeling.

What's coming up today.

That truly was a way for me to reconnect to my present self.

If you go back to an episode, it's actually been quite a while when I had a sex therapist kind of coach on the podcast.

I'll link it in the show notes.

She talked about having chronic pain for years and the thing that was able to allow her to get back connection with her body and presence with her body was again, yoga, being with herself in that process.

Another one that I find is like a really common place for my clients, for my women to find more presence is through walks.

Just going out and taking a walk and being with yourself.

Not a distracted walk, not listening to a podcast, not having a conversation, but just like being on a walk and letting your brain be, your mind be quiet and just like, like what, let whatever comes up, come up.

Maybe for you that's journaling, maybe for you that's meditation.

For some of us, to start that process is to really just have someone to be able to talk through it.

To have a coach to open up and share how you're feeling can be the key to reconnecting to that.

So there's a lot of different options there.

I'm giving you ideas of ways to just reconnect to who you are and how you're feeling.

Another thing that I see as the truest form of self-love and compassion on an infertility journey is to remember that we don't know how long this is going to last.

We don't know how long this is going to take.

And because of that, that means to me that we're going to be in it and we're going to to be trying and trialing and airing, but it would be such a shame to put our life and our identity on hold while we go through that journey.

And I hear that from so many women, they come to me and say, I don't even know who I am anymore, I'm just this person that goes to appointment after appointment after appointment and like literally just prioritizes my fertility and like my job because I need to make money to pay for my fertility and that's it.

Other than that, I have no idea who I am anymore.

I don't have any hobbies, I don't see friends, I don't connect with people 'cause they don't relate to what I'm going through.

I avoid going to people that are getting pregnant or having kids and I just don't have any joy in my life anymore.

And that is such a shame to think about putting your entire life on pause because that beautiful baby hasn't made it to your arms.

and I just encourage you to think about how can I come back to myself.

How can I live that full life.

How can I show up in my hobbies.

How can I build my career, start my business, go after that goal even while going through the infertility journey and not let this journey steal my identity from me.

That is like the truest form of self-love.

So really ask yourself like who are you.

What is important to you.

What are your passions.

What are your hobbies.

What are your goals.

And are you going after them.

Are you doing them.

Are you prioritizing them.

Or are all of them on hold while you do this journey.

And is that necessary.

Do they have to be on hold.

Is there a way to balance both.

That would be a beautiful way to live.

To still have a life worth living and loving and enjoying and be working towards a goal for the future.

So again, I really hope this episode shares with you some ideas of ways to create more self-love, compassion, connection with yourself into your day to day.

And again, gives you permission to acknowledge that this is worthwhile.

That if you're having trouble doing this, you're worth the investment.

Your emotional health matters just as much as refilling the next medication.

And so investing your time, your energy, your money into this matters.

the only way this journey through this process isn't going to continue to be 100% miserable is to prioritize you on the journey.

You're worth it.

I promise on this week of Valentine's Day.

If you're listening to this live, you're worth it.

Show yourself that love.

Put your Focus your energy, your money, your time into things that matter most and that's you.

I hope this inspires you this week.

I would love for you to message me and share just one or two ideas that you took away from this episode that you're gonna weave into your day to day to help you create more compassion and more self love in your journey.

And if you are struggling, if you're like, I don't have any idea how to get this to happen, I really don't know how to get myself to do more of this.

This feels impossible.

Almost to the point that like, even talking about this feels triggering to you.

It's time to get some support.

Reach out, send me a message.

We will talk about getting you on the coaching schedule and I will help you do this work.

That is what I do.

I love what I do and I can help you.

So I hope you guys have a great week and I will talk to you all next week.

Hey there, Inspired Mama.

If you enjoyed this show, I want to invite you to leave a review in your podcast player.

This helps to share the message with so many more women just like you.

Also, if you know of another hopeful mama on her path to motherhood, please share this episode with her.

I would love to get this into the ears of anyone who needs to hear it.

If you are ready to step this work up and not only learn these tools but to apply them to your unique story, head to the link in the show notes to apply for a free consult call.

I would be honored to help you.

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